Amazon gears up for India's first Prime Day

Prime is an annual subscription programme for free and faster delivery for Amazon's customers and was launched in India in July last year. The sales event will be exclusive to Prime members and will see big discounts and deals apart from new video content, Amit Agarwal, country head of Amazon India, told TOI.Anand J | July 10, 2017, 08:05 IST

BENGALURU: Amazon will be organizing on Monday its first Prime Day in India. The annual event generates half a billion dollars of sales every year in the US.

Prime is an annual subscription programme for free and faster delivery for Amazon's customers and was launched in India in July last year. The sales event will be exclusive to Prime members and will see big discounts and deals apart from new video content, Amit Agarwal, country head of Amazon India, told TOI.

Prime in India is priced at Rs 500 a year and almost 30% of the sales value on Amazon is generated by Prime members, the company said, adding that on sales events days it goes above 40%. The membership is said to have doubled since the launch of Prime Video in December.

The company said Prime Day , which will be held for 30 hours starting at 6pm on July 10 -coinciding with the US Prime Day -will see multiple brands launching products online on Amazon for the first time. Actor Salman Khan's Being Human has partnered with Amazon to launch its e-cycle on the day .

“The response to Prime in India since its launch less than a year ago is humbling and signals how we have reached an inflection point with online shopping.

Amazon is increasingly becoming a daily habit, and people are coming to Amazon for all their needs,“ Agarwal said. Among the biggest deals is a free 32-inch TV for those who purchase a TCL 55-inch smart TV . Amazon has also curated its deals based on eight different interest areas like gardening, beauty , interior decoration and bookworms.

Akshay Sahi, head of Prime, Amazon India, said, “Since there are sales events every month across various e-commerce platforms, it becomes imperative for us to differentiate by making it bigger and more valuable for customers.“. He said the company is not planning to raise Prime fees as of now as the programme is seeing rapid adoption across smaller cities.

The number of items available on Prime has gone up to 2.1 million now from 1.3 million at the time of launch. Sahi said at all Amazon sales events, Prime membership was always the most sold product.